City tries to douse a summer tradition

A boy's death near an open hydrant spurs a search for safer ways to help kids cool off

July 22, 2007|By Monique Garcia, Tribune staff reporter

An open fire hydrant near the corner of 19th Street and Damen Avenue recently turned the block into a water park.

Children wiggled on the asphalt as the cool water splashed across their bodies. Cars slowed to a crawl as some kids, laughing and screaming, darted in and out of the stream.

For many Chicago residents in neighborhoods where air conditioning is a luxury and city pools are less common, cooling off in front of a gushing hydrant on a sweltering day is a rite of passage.

City officials have long complained about the practice, however, because it depletes water pressure and hampers the ability to fight fires.

And after a 4-year-old boy was killed by an SUV earlier this month while playing in a hydrant's spray, they also are emphasizing that it can be dangerous.

Last week, Ald. Edward Burke (14th) proposed building mini-water parks near neighborhoods where hydrants are most frequently opened.

"There ought to be an alternative," Burke said.

On July 8, the hottest day of the year so far, 572 of Chicago's roughly 47,000 hydrants were opened, including one on the corner of May and West 60th Streets, where Marshawn Lee was killed. Police said the 4-year-old ran into the middle of the street, and his death has been ruled an accident. The SUV's driver was issued a citation for running a stop sign and will appear in court in August, authorities said.

Most of the opened hydrants that day were in South and West Side neighborhoods, including Englewood, Lawndale and Pilsen, water department records show.

On an average summer day, the Department of Water Management and Safety turns off 10 to 15 open hydrants, but that number jumps dramatically when temperatures spike.

Rev. Robin Hood, who lives two blocks from where Marshawn was killed, said he grew up in the city playing in the water from open hydrants.

"When I was a kid in North Lawndale, we used to have to turn the hydrants on in order to get some relief from the heat," said Hood, a pastor at Redeemed Outreach Ministries in West Englewood. "That was 40 years ago, and now, in the same neighborhood, they are still turning on hydrants to get relief."

In major cities across the nation, officials have struggled with how to stop a practice that is steeped in access, culture and tradition.

"The foundation issue here is inequality," said Phil Nyden, director of the Center for Urban Research and Learning and a sociology professor at Loyola University. "It's basically a correlation of who has air conditioning at home and income. What this all produces is a culture of why you do what you do. You learn if your parents did it, if your brothers and sisters do it. It becomes just what you do in the summer."

Nyden, who remembers open hydrants from his childhood in New York City, said the practice may also be rooted in the segregation of Chicago pools and beaches, common until as late as the 1960s, he said.

Today there are more than 100 pools and water attractions across the city. The facilities are free and hours vary. Several are on the North Side, where fewer hydrants are illegally opened.

Opening hydrants releases 564 gallons of water a minute and almost 34,000 gallons an hour. In 2006, more than 8 million gallons of water were wasted each day in Chicago because of illegally opened hydrants, compared with 2.7 million gallons of water a day used to fight fires, according to a report from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

The problem persists, despite the use of locking devices on about 19,000 hydrants across Chicago.Since devices called "custodians" were installed on hydrants in Los Angeles about 20 years ago, the city has rarely had problems with illegally opened hydrants, said Capt. Don Donnester of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

"The thing with having the tamper-proof caps for so long," he said, "people have become accustomed to not bothering them."

In New York, residents can check out sprinkler caps from the Fire Department when the mercury soars. The caps control the flow of water.

Chicago water department spokesman Gary Litherland said the city doesn't use sprinkler caps because it could be viewed as condoning illegal hydrant use.

Also, if their use were authorized, children would be playing near traffic. Instead, the department works with churches and community groups to spread the word about the dangers of open hydrants.

New York recently launched a pilot program in which teens hit the streets to educate their peers about problems that result from opening fire hydrants. Burke said Chicago should look into starting a similar program, but hopes his water park proposal will go further.

He said the open-hydrant problem isn't unique to Chicago, "but perhaps it's an opportunity for us to forge a plan that could be imitated across the country."

Chicago Park District spokeswoman Marta Juaniza said her office is willing to explore Burke's proposal, but added residents have access to dozens of pools and water attractions.